OK, now we're getting somewhere, right? Even if so many other Secret Societies spend their time in Charity Bowling, Chili-cookoffs, and 4th of July Parades, the Illuminati must be the real deal, the guys that secretly run the world, right?! Maybe not. But unlike most of the other secret societies on this list, at least they really did want to run the world. Problem is, the Illuminati haven't actually existed for over 200 years. They were founded in 1776 by a Bavarian philosopher named Adam Weishaupt. Weishaupt despised organized religion and monarchy, and wanted to use Freemasonry to try to destroy these and build a new civilization run by philosophers (what a coincidence, that he thought that his exact job was the perfect one to run the world!). Unfortunately for him, the Freemasons didn't really give a crap, and while they had their problems with the Catholic Church, they weren't anti-religion (in fact, to be a Mason you must profess belief in a supreme being). So Weishaupt did like so many others, and started his own rival group. Only he tried to get his members to infiltrate Masonic lodges in an effort to take them over; recruiting some new members from the Masons by pretending that the Illuminati were the true ancient and secret chiefs of Freemasonry. The whole thing fell apart when some of these new members started asking questions they couldn't answer and it became obvious that the order had no ancient history, and that Weishaupt was making it all up as he went along. The Illuminati were already hemorrhaging members by 1785 (and they'd never been that large to begin with, probably without even 1000 members at their peak), when Prince Karl Thoeodore of Bavaria heard about how the Illuminati wanted to destroy the monarchy and banned them (and all other secret societies in Bavaria). Everything after that is just crazy laughable Conspiracy Theory... or is it?? Nah, I'm just screwing with you. It really totally is.